Ahmadinejad: Israeli attack impossible

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has downplayed any Israeli assault on the country’s nuclear facilities, insisting that Tel Aviv lacks the ability to attack Iran.

“Iran is a very big country, much greater than the Zionists [Israeli regime] can imagine; the possibility of their attack on Iran is non-existent, and we don’t even think about such issues,” President Ahmadinejad said in an interview with the prominent, US-based liberal magazine Newsweek on Wednesday.

In the interview, the Iranian chief executive held the United States and its allies accountable for the suspension of talks with the Vienna Group — the US, Russia, France and the IAEA — over Iran’s nuclear program for prompting various international and unilateral sanctions against the country’s banking and energy sectors.

President Ahmadinejad, however, emphasized that such sanctions not only have “no impact on Iran’s economy,” but they have contributed to an economic progress in the country.

“We have remained ready for [nuclear] talks, but, regrettably, while we were engaged in negotiations based on the Tehran Declaration, the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution 1929 was passed and we therefore postponed the talks for two months,” IRNA quoted the president as saying.

On June 9, the UNSC passed the fourth round of sanctions against the Islamic Republic as part of punitive measures against the country’s nuclear enrichment program.

Following the UN sanctions, the United States, the European Union led several of their allies, including Canada and Australia, to participate in unilateral sanctions against Tehran.

The Untied States, Israel and their Western allies have repeatedly accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons under the guise of civilian nuclear program, a rhetorical claim vehemently rejected by the Iranian government.

Iran says as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it reserves the right to continue its enrichment program, arguing that all its nuclear activities remain under the full supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

When asked about Iran’s preconditions for returning to the nuclear talks, President Ahmadinejad reiterated that “the negotiating sides should declare their positions in terms of their commitment to the NPT and clarify whether their intentions in the talks are friendly or antagonistic.”

“These countries should also declare their positions regarding the Zionist regime’s nuclear bomb and state whether they are against it or not,” he noted.

“Their response to this question will determine the nature of the negotiations,” the Iranian president concluded.